s share of the spoil gained
in the battle of Lewes: he engrossed to himself the ransom of all the
prisoners; and told his barons, with a wanton insolence, that it was
sufficient for them that he had saved them by that victory from the
forfeitures and attainders which hung over them:[**] he even treated the
earl of Glocester in the same injurious manner, and applied to his own
use the ransom of the king of the Romans, who in the field of battle had
yielded himself prisoner to that nobleman. Henry, his eldest son, made a
monopoly of all the wool in the kingdom, the only valuable commodity for
foreign markets which it at that time produced.[***] The inhabitants of
the cinque ports, during the present dissolution of government, betook
themselves to the most licentious piracy, preyed on the ships of all
nations, threw the mariners into the sea, and by these practices,
soon banished all merchants from the English coasts and harbors. Every
foreign commodity rose to an exorbitant price, and woollen cloth, which
the English had not then the art of dyeing, was worn by them white, and
without receiving the last hand of the manufacturer. In answer to the
complaints which arose on this occasion, Leicester replied that
the kingdom could well enough subsist within itself, and needed no
intercourse with foreigners. And it was found that he even combined with
the pirates of the cinque ports, and received as his share the third of
their prizes.[****]

* Rymer, vol. i. p. 792.

** Knyghton, p. 2451.

*** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 65.

**** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 6.

No further mention was made of the reference to the king of France, so
essential an article in the agreement of Lewes; and Leicester summoned a
parliament, composed altogether of his own partisans, in order to
rivet, by their authority, that power which he had acquired by so much
violence, and which he used with so much tyranny and injustice. An
ordinance was there passed, to which the king's consent had been
previously extorted, that every act of royal power should be exercised
by a council of nine persons, who were to be chosen and removed by the
majority of three, Leicester himself, the earl of Glocester, and the
bishop of Chichester.[*] By this intricate plan of government, the
sceptre was really put into Leicester's hands; as he had the entire
direction of the bishop of Chichester, and thereby commanded all the
resolutions of the council of three, who cou